Requesting a voice actor with Kentucky/Tennessee accent. Any takers?

[Mysticpuma]

Looking for someone to read the part of Herschel Green for "The Checkertails " project. Needs to have the accent above and be able to read it as though it was from memory rather than from a page (if you see what I mean).

Any takers? Need it quite urgently, cheers, MP

[Pursuivant]

I'm not volunteering, but a stock "hillbilly" accent should be fairly easy for any native English speaker to fake, assuming their native accent is something approaching English "RP" or American "Mid-Atlantic", if that's what you want.

If you're looking for realism, there are actually several "Kentucky/Tennessee" accents - the East Tennessee/Kentucky "Appalachian" accent is slightly different from the Western Kentucky accent (which also gets into Southern Illinois and Indiana) and accents also differ very slightly from North to South.

Education and exposure to outside accents also affects accents, so an educated Kentuckian/Tennesseean will speak differently from a stereotypical hillbilly raised "down the holler". Historically, an educated Kentuckian/Tennesseean will modify their accent towards the "Mid Atlantic" accent or possibly the "Tidewater Virginia" accent since those accents are seen as being posher.

Western Kentucky accent (Kevin Skinner, possibly playing it up a bit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NgMolL1gR8

Eastern Kentucky/Appalachian (slightly older speaker, using obsolete terms)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU&feature=related

Educated/Modified Kentucky Accent (Sen. Mitch McConnell)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYS1BeEnqXw

Unless you have audio of Col. Green speaking, I'd be very careful not to use too much "cornpone". My guess is that he came from a reasonably well-to-do family since he completed high school and college during the Depression, even though he came from a poor state where, historically, education was a luxury.

I'd guess that he had a modified/softened Western Kentucky accent and used standard U.S. grammar (i.e., "isn't" instead of "ain't"), but might lapse into common regionalisms (e.g., "y'all" instead of the collective "you") or intensify his accent under stress: someplace between Mitch McConnell and Kevin Skinner.

I grew up in an area where the "Western Kentucky" accent was common, but my voice is wrong for the part, my accent is modified Mid-Atlantic and I'm not a good enough voice actor to fake an accent and make it sound right.

[_RAAF_Stupot]

Thanks for those videos Pursuivant. I found the second one interesting - language and linguistics is a casual armchair interest of mine.

I cannot do any of those accents - a member of our squad is from western Oklahoma, and to my ears he sounds much like those people, if not using some of their regional terms.

I'm surprised you think that somebody with 'RP' could easily do a decent 'American Hillbilly' accent. To me that's almost like saying a Kentuckian can easily do a decent South Australian accent. (Not so long ago, RP was the required accent for announcers on our national broadcaster. Fast forward to 0:35 in the following video.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X8D7JloFTw

[Mysticpuma]

Thanks guys, very interesting....fortunately the post has now been filled. Cheers, MP